Monday, 27 February 2012

Vegetarian recipes

In some historical records Saigon is described as ”a place where unlikely assortment of people meet”:“la noi gap go cua dan tu chieng”, how true it is for me. the last six months living in Saigon, by chance I ran into so many peoples whom I had not seen or heard of for a very long time.

One of these coincidences was the vegetarian lunch booking by a VIP, according to my trainees.

The VIP turned out to be the daughter of the Ex President of South Vietnam in the 1960s. whom I met in Sydney when they officially visited Australia. As a Colombo Plan Student I was invited to the reception at the Governor General’s House,

And here we are 50 years later I made lunch for the daughter.

We made lotus seed stuffed tofu with spicy sauce , braised daikon & shiitake mushroom with soy sauce and coconut juice and pumpkin soup with peanuts. She complimented : “I had never eaten such beautiful vegetarian food “ And she took away what were left.

RECIPES:

Lotus seed stuffed tofu with spicy sauce.

Preparation time:45minutes

Cooking time: 20minutes

Make: 4 large filled pockets

Ingredientss:

600gRegular soft tofu, divided into 4 portions. Drain on kitchen paper and weighted with a flat plate. Fry. Sli 1 side make into empty pocket. Reserve the soft tofu.

In a large bowl, mix evenly the soft tofu , mashed lotus seeds, steamed mung bean, diced mushroom black fungus and coeiander and leek. Season with salt and pepperfor the filling.

Fill each fried tofu pocket with the filling, and arrange the pocket, slit side up side by side in a pot..

To make the sauce heat oil in a frying pan, fry some leek until soft, add tomato paste, minced chili, stir to make a rich red colour, then add diced fresh tomato, season with sugar and salt, cook slowly until tomato is soft , add stock or water, bring to boiling briefly, then pour the sauce over the stuff tofu pocket, The sauce should generously cover the tofu.. Cook the tofu in sauce on low heat for 10-15 minutes., most of the sauce will be absorbed by the tofu.

To serve, slice each tofu pocket into 4 sliced served with shredded perilla.